


and just like any other day

by afrocurl



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Coming of Age, Curtain Fic, Father-Daughter Relationship, M/M, Rites of Passage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:25:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorna's trying to look forward to Monday morning before everything goes <i>wrong</i>. But she gets the day off school and some time with Dad and learns just a little bit about herself in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and just like any other day

**Author's Note:**

> Playing fast and loose with my were/vamp/supernatural square for my trope-bingo card, so let's just leave that as it is.
> 
> But this is also a sort of bunny from **aesc** who was talking about things from her work, which reminded me of things from my childhood.

Dad, as always, carefully opened the door to her room and tried to wake Lorna up without too much fuss. That was how it always was since Papa was not the person she ever wanted to wake her up - at least not unless she wanted to be mean to all her friends because his bad mood was as contagious as chicken pox.

So, Dad was preferable, always, to Papa, but even the smooth British accent he had couldn’t wake her up. This morning, all Lorna felt was stuffy, still sleepy and gross even after five minutes sitting in her room with the lights on after Daddy left. That was not how she pictured her Monday morning, especially since she and Anya had spent so much time the night before picking out the perfect outfit to impress Alex. She knew that Papa and Daddy wouldn’t like that she was trying to get a boy’s attention, but she was old enough to make her own decisions.

Now, however, she just wanted to curl into a fetal position and never come back up.

“Lorna, you need to shower and eat before we go!” Dad yelled from downstairs. He sounded like he was herding Wanda and Pietro out of the nursery and into their clothes, but she didn’t want to know for sure because she’d end up having to help him get them changed after they spilled cereal all over their shirts.

She tried to get up, but felt sluggish still.

This was not at all how she imagined starting her Monday.

-

Through some unknown miracle, Lorna had managed to get herself ready for school and out of the house only ten minutes later than she liked. Dad made them all hurry to the subway and wave goodbye to him before they all walked to Hunter. She had to, according to Dad and Papa, hold on to the twins’ hands as they walked from the subway station to school, but as she did, all she wanted to do was to drop everyone off and go back home.

She felt awful.

Just awful.

Walking only made it worse.

-

Everything only got more and more fuzzy and terrible as the morning went on. She couldn’t focus and just as she tried to pick her head up, she found half the metal objects at her seat and a very confused look on her Social Studies professor’s face.

“Lorna, is everyone okay?” she had asked when the class was working on an activity.

“I’ve been feeling sluggish all morning, but I didn’t mention anything to Dad because he stresses when Papa isn’t home.”

Her teacher reached out, carefully and felt her forehead. “You’re warm and I haven’t seen anything like this happen, so why don’t you go down to the Health Office and call Dad. I don’t think you should be here.”

She tried to say thank you, but a row of paper clips stuck to her.

Wonderful.

-

The Nurse managed to take one look at Lorna’s face before asking, “Who can I call about this? It looks like you’re manifesting.”

She’d have said something about stating the obvious, but she felt too awful to say anything but, “Call NYU, please. Papa’s not at Stark right now.”

With some effort, Lorna watched as the nurse dialed and spoke to Dad. “Excuse Dr. Xavier, yes, this is the Nurse at Hunter and I have some news.” There was a pause. “No, nothing too horrible, but it appears that Lorna has started to manifest powers. She’s sitting here with paper clips stuck to her body. We’ll need you to come get her.”

The phone call ended shortly after that and all Lorna wanted to do was curl up at home. But it was going to take Dad at least thirty minutes to get here and then they needed to figure out where to go.

She sighed and tried to get comfortable on the plastic chair as the metal around her shifted with her weight.

When that failed, she sat as still as possible and thought about willing the clock on the wall to go faster so that Dad would arrive.

It failed, for the most part, but just when she had given up home on being able to leave school, Dad barrelled through the door of the Health Office with a bouquet of flowers with a card and a loud huff.

“Sorry it took so long, dear. I love you and I should have known something was off this morning. Forgive me?” he asked, before offering the flowers to her.

“‘S okay, Dad. I know how you are, so it’s no big deal.” She tried to shrug it off, but Dad’s expression was so heartfelt and slightly sad that she couldn’t do much else.

“No, it’s not okay. You should be at home right now.” He started to lead her away from the Nurse, after he checked her out for the day (and the next three she saw) before they were standing in the morning air in front of school.

“Now, I know I should take you home, call Papa and talk through all of this, but I’m knee deep in students frantic before their first exam. Do you mind if we go to the office?”

She wanted to say yes - to say that she wanted to be home under her pillows and away from everything else that might stick to her - but she looked at Dad and knew he’d never let his students down like that, not even for her. She started to walk towards the subway so they could get down to NYU before anything else happened. “If you can promise me a room near your lab where nothing will stick to me, I’m okay with it.”

“I think we have something like that around right now. One of the labs is being used for something else right now. No metal at all.”

She let a wan smile cross her lips before she felt Dad’s watch start to turn towards her. “Let’s hurry Dad. Your watch likes me right now.”

“Right then. The subway won’t be too much you think?”

“Papa never complains,” she said with another shrug.

“He's had years of practice. Well, there’s always time for scientific inquiry with this. Let’s investigate!”

He sounded far too cheerful about this whole process, but she ignored that as she tried to smell and inspect the flowers.

-

Scientific inquiry on the subway consisted of Dad obsessively observing Lorna as she sat in the car. She had hoped and hoped that nothing in there would stick to her, and through some other mystery of modern genetics, her powers chose the entire ride to retreat.

She didn’t even attract an iPod.

It was both scary and a relief because she imagined that the minute that they both walked into Dad’s office she’d attract all the supplies from every lab on the floor.

Dad had a reassuring hand at her shoulder, though it didn’t stop his keycard from not scanning to let him into basement level.

“It’ll be fine in a few minutes. Promise,” he said when he managed to use one of the phones to call into the floor to ask for help. “You’ll be fine once you’re inside Hank’s normal lab.”

“Why isn’t he in his lab right now?” she asked, because she knew Dad liked Hank and that he had lots of research going on.

“He’s using his, but for something different. He’s studying different mutants and how their powers exist under normal circumstances.”

“No one’s going to study me, though?”

“Of course not. We’ll just use the couch and bed in Hank’s lab. I’ll be in my office if you need me. Do you need anything?”

She looked around the room and saw that it was mostly nondescript and boring. There was nothing to do. “A book? I don’t think I should try to do my homework.”

Dad started to shake his head, but said, “You’re right. I’ll see if I can find something upstairs.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said as she looked at the blankets on the bed and all but tore them off and curled into them on the couch.

That at least felt comfortable. Safe. More like home. If she could get over the slightly antiseptic smell and the recycled air.

Dad knocked again a few minutes later, just after she’d gotten situated, and handed her a copy of _Jane Eyre_. “It’s all I could find. I hope it’s not too much.”

She’d been told that reading classics was something that she needed to do more of in school, so she nodded and opened the book.

There was a soft click of the door shutting again and she shifted again to try and get comfortable with the book.

-

Hours passed before Dad came back down. “Sorry that took longer than I expected. You must be starving. Why don’t we head home and grab something along the way. Just before I get the rest of your siblings.”

“Do we have to get them? I don’t want to be around them now.” She knew she was whining, but she felt tired, nearly strung out, and didn’t want to answer questions from everyone else about why she wasn’t at school.

“I’ll see if I can get Ororo’s Mom to take them for a few more hours. We’ll call Papa in Los Angeles and talk before they come home.”

It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. “Okay.” She made an attempt to untangle herself from the blankets, and nearly tripped in the process.

“Let me help and we’ll find some Thai? Or do you want something else?” Dad started to shuffle around the blankets before he gave up and left a heap on the couch.

“Thai sounds good.”

-

There were two nearly empty cartons of Thai on the kitchen table when Dad finally called Papa. Lorna sat on the LazyBoy and waited as Dad started to talk.

“Hello, dear. I have some news.” A long pause. “No, nothing caught on fire. It’s not like that.” A beat. “No, Erik, will you listen? Lorna started to manifest at school.”

There was now an awkward silence that Lorna wished she could fill. Though as she thought to move to grab the phone, Dad spoke again. “It seems that she’s attracting metals so she got something from you.”

Vaguely she heard a muffled shout. “Now, I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it. Just calm down. Don’t make Tony fly you home. We’ll be fine. Won’t we, Lorna?”

“Yeah, Dad, we’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about Papa. I haven’t had anything stick to me in a few hours and I think Dad’ll help me with other stuff later tonight. Okay?” she nearly screamed so Papa could hear.

“Thank you for that, dear. I think I need a minute to get my hearing back. But yes, we’ll be fine. Don’t have Tony fret for nothing. That’ll only make Pepper and JARVIS worry. We know how that ends.”

Dad hung up the phone a moment later.

“So, we still have another two hours before Anya and the twins are home. Why don’t we start talking about your powers. Can I read you for this?”

She nodded and let herself feel the affection that he was sending, mixed with Papa’s pride and his own.

“We’ll start by having you think about some metal - my watch - since you liked it earlier. What does it feel like right now?”

Lorna tried to focus on his watch and put into words what she felt. “I feel the gears ticking as the pieces move.”

“Good. Now can you tell me if those pieces all feel different?”

It went on like that, where she thought through what the watch felt like and how it responded to her.

So her Monday didn’t turn out quite as she expected, but she figured that manifesting and an odd day at Dad’s office was better than most things at Hunter. Except maybe seeing Alex’s reaction to her now wasted outfit.


End file.
